Vagisha - Kannada Vedic Font

Introduction
Vagisha is a derivative of the beautiful Kedage font, released by IISC. Kedage carries GNU GPL license.
The derived version is also released under GNU GPL. Also, for the sake of completeness (punctuation
marks, Latin numerals, Roman alphabets), the font borrows from Charis SIL's Basic-Latin block (00-7F)
entirely.

The present initiative

The free font Kedage, though beautiful, has incomplete OT tables. Also, the calligraphy is more
concentrated on aesthetics than readability. The font has been refurbished, OT tables completely rewritten, and released as Vagisha.

Glyph Enhancements
Some glyphs of Kedage have been mildly spruced for easier read. The following is a comparison of the
glyphs from the Kedage and Vagisha.
]d D ]

&

Unicode Glyph Additions

The following Unicode defined glyphs have been added.
Code Point

0xC81

0xC8C

0xCE1

0xCE2

0xCE3

0xCF1

0xCF2

non-Unicode Glyph Additions

The following glyphs have been added for legacy-text production.
Code Point

0xCBA

Character Name

legacy

1/3

0xCC5

0xCDE

double avagraha

Tamil z

To input

using BhashaIME, type 'n' followed by ESC.

Key input

nESC

Text production

To input

with BhashaIME, type shift-z.

Key input

Za

Zaa

Zi

Zii

Zu

Zuu

Ze

"

Text production

Zee
#

Zai

Zo

Zoo

Zau

#$

#"

#"

Vedic Extensions
Windows (till ver 8.1) did not allow anchoring non-Devanagari characters with Vedic svara-s. Windows 8.1
does. Hence Vedic svara-s have been provided both in the Devanagari space (useful in Windows ver >=
8.1) and Kannada space (as non-Unicode); the later enables Vedic svara-s to be positioned appropriately
over the Kannada characters in Windows ver < 8.1. BhashaIME recognizes the OS and automatically uses
the appropriate ones. Refer BhashaIME User's Manual regarding typing the svara-s.

Unicode Code Point

0x951

0x1CDA

0x952

non-Unicode Code Point

0xCD1

0xCBB

0xCD2

Character Name

udtta
&

drgha svarita
'

anudtta

Symbol

Unicode Code Point

0xA8F3

0xA8F4

0x1CF2

0x1CF3

non-Unicode Code Point

0xCD3

0xCD4

0xCF1

0xCF2

gama anusvra

dvirbhta lupta
gamnusvra

jihvmlya

upadhmnya

Character Name
Symbol

The issue of arkavattu

Legacy texts do not employ arkavattu (as in

+ ,- !.). Instead, the preferred form is

2/3

/ 0- !..

Unfortunately, the solution proposed in Unicode 4.0 in not practicable. To enable the alternate form, the
glyph N (which is rarely ever used) has been replaced by 1. Using the later will enable typing

234 ,

235 etc.
To input the alternate 1 form using BhashaIME, type 'r' followed by ESC. Though there would be no
immediate perceivable change, the change would be apparent upon typing the next character.

Key input

Text production

aryamaa

,4

arESCyamaa

234

3/3